Lotus

​​What if it rained? The whiteness of my clothes would soak through, become thin as paper, as the glossy shell of sleeping larvae, like the wrinkled skin of bean-sized mice, because my hair, the insides of my shoes, they aren’t made for that. ​

​Damp and streaming, the strings of lights might break free, sway like Tarzan ropes. The table coverings would hover and fling off their little glass jars full of pebbles and penny weights, and bleed a little water and wine. Your mother’s makeup would run off. The dogs would muddy the entryway, and everyone else would trap themselves in their cars, the grass pockmarked with puddles and the perforation of their heels. The bouquets would go out with a bang, to say, happy for this afterlife, this grassy singing, the leaves’ glad sighing and stretching of roots. The toes of the earth would wriggle and take a drink, birds bathing, ants closing up their doors, the dense air blanketing all. No need to cover us with your nice coat, love. The yard is spilling with the world’s good luck. The rain would make it even clearer, that we are meant to be.